"Back stairs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man-servant, not liking to leave me entirely alone on the ground floor. It led to a passage to the garden door, also to my mother's den, dedicated to housewifely cares and stores, and ended at the back stairs, descending to the servants' region. This was very old, handsomely vaulted with stone, and, owing to the fall of the ground, had ample space for light on the north side,—where, beyond the drive, the descent was so rapid as to afford Martyn infinite delight in rolling down, to the ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an hour after the encounter with Caryl, dressed in a long dark motoring coat and closely veiled, she slipped down the back stairs that led to the servants' quarters, stood listening against a baize door that led into the front hall, then whisked it open and fled across to open the conservatory door, noiseless as ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... front stairs suit you?" said Mrs. O'Halloran. "Cock you up, indeed, the likes of you, that never was in a lady's house before. The back stairs is good enough for me, so I'm thinking it's good enough for you. Come along ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... In addition to what Anne has said, I must add what we have heard since. Before Mlle. D'Avaray went away, she went into Mile, de Contibonne's room, from which she made her way down the back stairs. They wondered she did not return, and when they looked for her, the bird was flown. I believe he was in the street waiting for her. It was certainly a bold step for a French girl, as the eloping, or as they call it being enlevee, is considered as everything ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... morning had many visitors, among whom one of the earliest and most unfortunate was Mr Longestaffe. At that time there had been arranged at the offices in Abchurch Lane a mode of double ingress and egress,—a front stairs and a back stairs approach and exit, as is always necessary with very great men,—in reference to which arrangement the honour and dignity attached to each is exactly contrary to that which generally prevails in the world; the front stairs ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... at the top of the house; he reached it by the back stairs, and had to open a wooden gate at the top of them before he could get to it. There were two rooms, one leading out of the other, and both looked out at the back of the house. Bobby spent hours by the window, and he knew every inch of ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... mining enterprises, combining in his person almost as many offices as, Pooh-Bah in "The Mikado." Though he could not have claimed to serve as "First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Buck Hounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop of Titipu and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one," he could with entire modesty have admitted the soft impeachment of being simultaneously treasurer of Amphalula, vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, secretary of Horse's Neck, Holy Jo, Gargoyle ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... difficulty in recognizing Buck Looker, and without more ado he made for the back stairs leading down to the kitchen. Hot rage was in his heart and a resolve to have it out with the bully once and for all. Noiselessly he unfastened the kitchen door and passed out into the night, approaching the barn with as ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... he had better get out so he started on a run, but the door at the end of the hall had blown shut, and the only other way of escape was up the front stairs. As he reached the top, he saw Susie who had been scrubbing the top of the back stairs, throw down her brush, preparatory to going to see what the noise was. They both caught sight of each other at the same moment, and Susie thought the long, sinister looking, scarlet-bearded face with the horns, that appeared at the top of the stairs, was the ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... fitter for it than I." Then he showed me a letter signed by the Queen, promising me all manner of security if I would come to Court. I went thither at midnight, according to agreement, and the Marshal, who introduced me to the Queen by the back stairs, having withdrawn, her Majesty used all the arguments she could to persuade me to accept the place of Prime Minister, which I was determined to refuse, because I found that she had the Cardinal at heart more than ever; for, as soon as she saw I would not accept the post of ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... concealment]. — N. camouflage; mimicry; hiding place; secret place, secret drawer; recess, hold, holes and corners; closet, crypt, adytum^, abditory^, oubliette. ambush, ambuscade; stalking horse; lurking hole, lurking place; secret path, back stairs; retreat &c (refuge) 666. screen, cover, shade, blinker; veil, curtain, blind, cloak, cloud. mask, visor, vizor^, disguise, masquerade dress, domino. pitfall &c (source of danger) 667; trap &c (snare) 545. V. blend in, blend into the background. lie in ambush &c (hide oneself) 528; lie in wait ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... quite silent now, except when Sarah trudged up the back stairs with the clanking silver-basket on her arm. The lamp on the corner of her bureau flickered, and a spark wavered up the chimney; the oil was gone and the wick charring. She got up and blew the smouldering flame out; then sat down again in the darkness.... Yes; Lloyd ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... light feet down the uncarpeted back stairs, and Penelope, breathless, rosy, and smiling, appeared ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... comin' home and hearin' the tales they was tellin'. He is worth the whole bunch of 'em tied in a knot; a gentleman inside and out, and his hand in his pocket ivery time you served him. Ain't that somebody a-callin' ye down the back stairs?" ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... a wolf!" cried Dotty; and down the attic stairs they flew pell-mell; through the kitchen chamber and the great unfinished chamber, and down the back stairs; through the kitchen and the dining-room, and burst into grandma's room all out ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... after her," he said gently. "Get me my hat and coat. I'll slip down the back stairs and over to ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... but I didn't think any one here would be likely to do better with it than I would. Anyhow, you'll find hot water. I unearthed—literally—another kettle. And it's the first door at the top of the back stairs." ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... raining smartly by the time the tavern was reached, nearly a mile down the bank. Our advent caused a rare scurrying to and fro, for two commercial "drummers," who were to depart by the early morning boat, occupied the "reg'lar spar' room," the landlady informed us, and a bit of a cubby-hole off the back stairs had to be arranged for us. Guests are rarities, at the hostelry ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... door yet?' He's halfway up the back stairs, and coming fast. He and the landlord will be here to-morrow. 'Mr. Landlord, allow me to present Mr. F. Wolf, of Hunger, ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... out by the back stairs again and the kitchen —now in a state of great activity, the gas ring lit and preparations for lunch going on apace—and forth into the yard. Out in the open air he drew a long breath: safe in tweeds ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... daylight when Markham woke him. She dressed him hurriedly, and carried him and his crutch down the back stairs and into that very butler's pantry through whose window he had crept at the bidding of the red-haired man. No one else seemed ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... to confine yourself to your chamber, except now and then, in Betty Barnes's sight (as aforesaid) you take a morning or evening turn in the garden: and then you are to go directly, and without stopping at any apartment in the way, up or down the back stairs, that the sight of so perverse a young creature may not add to the pain ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... to unite the whole, en suite, without disturbing the individuality of either. Also, the hall lamp and stove would light and warm, equally, every room, besides passage, vestibule, and stairs. The cloak closet is in the passage which contains the back stairs. ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... remember that there musn't be no monkey business going on. I told him there shouldn't be no monkey business, but I didn't promise nothing about cats. Well, sir, you'd a dide. The committee was in the library by the back stairs, and me and my chum got the cat boxes all together, at the top of the stairs, and we took them all out and put them in a clothes basket, and just as the minister was speaking, and telling what a great good was done by these oyster sociables, in bringing the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... and tell the student," said the goblin; and with these words he went quietly up the back stairs to the garret where the student lived. He had a candle burning still, and the goblin peeped through the keyhole and saw that he was reading in the torn book, which he had brought out of the shop. But how light the room was! ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... after the festival before the news of the Latham divorce was made definitely public by a paragraph under the heading of "Society News," in one of the New York papers, though of course the rumour had crept into every house on the Bluffs, by way of the back stairs. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... an alarm the night preceding, the prisoners in the jail having broken out. A serious affray had been expected, and everything was prepared for putting the person of the president in safety. The back stairs and secret passages in these old convents lead to excellent hiding-places, and have been put to frequent use during the revolutions. In the old Monte Pio there is a communication with a convent of nuns, and in cases of pillage, the jewels used to be carried by a private staircase ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... ten minutes, but, as he descended the back stairs in his dry things, became aware that his stay had been too long. Noise and laughter came up from the stable-yard, and shouts of, "Go it keeper," "Keeper's down," "No he bain't," greeted his astonished ears. He ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... were climbing up back stairs to what had been the temporary lodgings of the English legation. But it was empty and deserted; Sir Ralph Paget ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... him to the world. For there are good reasons to believe, from several circumstances, that he had intentions of a deeper dye, than those he happened to execute;[18] I mean such as every good subject must tremble to think on. He hath of late been frequently seen going up the back stairs at court, and walking alone in an outer room adjoining to her Ma[jest]y's bed-chamber. He has often and earnestly pressed for some time to have access to the Qu[een], even since his correspondence with France; and he has now given such a proof of his disposition, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... his creeping up and down the back stairs,' said Bella, rather contemptuously, 'further than knowing that he does no such thing; and as to his never being seen, I should be content never to have seen him, though he is quite as visible as you are. But I pleased HIM ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Maud came up the back stairs, so radiant with joy from her secret interview with the cook that Peter could have pinched her with a clear conscience; and Carol gave them a joyful welcome. "But where is Baby Larry?" she cried, looking over the group with searching eye. ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... more, he (with his associates) entered on that great undertaking of Brompton Park; and upon the Revolution, was made superintendant of all their Majesties gardens, for which he had L200. a year, and a Page of the Back Stairs to Queen Mary. Mr. London and Mr. Wise being joined partners, and thus, as it were, both possessed of the royal favour, and the purses of the king, queen, and nobility, left no stone unturned to carry on their designs. Soon after the peace of Reswyck, Mr. London took another journey ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... she was to make up and the prodigious total it came to were kept well before Maisie at her mother's. These things were the constant occupation of Mrs. Wix, who arrived there by the back stairs, but in tears of joy, the day after her own arrival. The process of making up, as to which the good lady had an immense deal to say, took, through its successive phases, so long that it heralded a term at least equal to the child's last stretch ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... answer, he marched to the kitchen with the cat, and in due time, they heard the "Sweet Bye and Bye" going up the back stairs, and then the thump, thump of the Captain's shoes on the floor ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... into the house to find Olga Cedarstrom still breathing out threatenings and slaughter. Olga was in her nightgown and a wrapper. She had not even stopped for slippers when she came from her bed. Now she padded to the back stairs, turning to shake her clenched ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... you like it, well and good. If not, I shall have to put you in a room that leaks and has swallows' nests in the chimney," answered Mrs. Condiment, as she led the way along the narrow passages and up and down dark back stairs and through bare and deserted rooms and along other passages until she reached a remote chamber, opened the door and ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... day of that week—it was about the middle of the afternoon—a score of men, gossiping in the lower hall of the court building, were hushed suddenly. A young man came hurrying down the back stairs ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... stairs When ye come to court me; Come down the back stairs When ye come to court me; Come down the back stairs, And let naebody see, And come as ye were na ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... rendered ostentatious by the attendance of a great number of servants, and by a profusion of plate, was over, Madame Cheron retired to her chamber, and a female servant came to shew Emily to hers. Having passed up a large stair-case, and through several galleries, they came to a flight of back stairs, which led into a short passage in a remote part of the chateau, and there the servant opened the door of a small chamber, which she said was Ma'amselle Emily's, who, once more alone, indulged the tears she had long tried ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... river. While this struggle was going on, a large party of Chinese, who walked from Seniawan, were ransacking the town. Enraged with the Bishop for trying to bring the Rajah back, they rushed into our house to find him; but he, having sent off all our belongings, English and native, ran down the back stairs while the Chinese rushed up into the porch in front, and escaped to the Chinese town, where shots were flying about in plenty, but did not hit him. He got into a little boat passing by, with two Malays in it, and they paddled him to the Rajah's war boat, then retreating down the ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... sucking his thumb and trying to swear with his mouth full. Ma says,—this is all she said,—Ma says: 'Did you hit your finger, Lucius?' Pa let fly the hammer. It didn't miss her head a foot. Then he fired the flatiron at her feet. Ma screamed and started to run to'ards the back stairs. Pa knocked over the kitchen table trying to head her off. She stumbled and fell down on her hands and knees. Then while he was looking for something to beat her brains out with, she got up and run into the pantry ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... reply, but stood with streaming eyes and watched the girl slip down the back stairs and ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... Judy descending the back stairs. She fixed her eyes upon her with the clear design of transfixing and paralyzing this brazen American. Judy folded her arms and turned her glance upon her foe. The nearest onlookers held their breaths. Overcome by the calm ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... the course of action, and Marcia, understanding perfectly flew up the back stairs as noiselessly as a mouse, to make her toilet after her nap in the woods, while David with much show and to-do of opening and shutting the wide-open kitchen door walked obviously into the kitchen and hurried through ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... getting his subjects' money to carry it out. He gave L6,787 odd from unsupplied secret service money. To this, Tobias Rustat, an under-keeper of the Royal Palace of Hampton Court, and yeoman of the robes to Charles II., described by Evelyn as "page of the back stairs, a very simple, ignorant, but honest and loyal creature," contributed L1,000. However simple this man was, his simplicity manifested itself in a commendable direction. He is said to have given away his whole fortune in charity. ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... and to divide the back yard between Sir W. Pen and him, which though I do not see how it will annoy me much particularly, yet it do trouble me a little for fear it should, but I do not see how it can well unless in his desiring my coming to my back stairs, but for that I shall do as well as himself or Sir W. Pen, who is most concerned ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... place, they returned to the back stairs, which they descended, and having pursued the several windings of a long passage, found themselves again in the marble hall. 'Now,' said the marquis, 'what think ye? What evil spirits infest these walls? Henceforth be cautious how ye credit the phantasms of idleness, for ye may not always meet with ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... usual hour, had in the mean time risen and was prepared for her flight. The young king and his brother were awoke from their sleep, hurriedly dressed, and conveyed to the carriage in waiting. The queen regent, with several other prominent members of the court, descended the back stairs which led from the queen's apartment and joined the children. Immediately one or two other carriages drove up, and the whole party entered them, and by different routes, through the dark and narrow streets, left the city. It was a short ride ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... said,—"catch it." But Rose ran half-way downstairs, received the cake, dimpled her thanks, and retreated to the darkness above, whence sounds proceeded which sent the amused Professor into the parlor convulsed with suppressed laughter. Pretty soon Clover stole up the back stairs to report. ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... added, hunting in the "uppest drawer" till she found the eyeless spectacles used for playing "old lady." With these on, Flyaway thought she could see the way a great deal better. Horace's boots would help her up hill; so she jumped into those, and clattered down the back stairs ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... assured Anne. "That would be affectation, and, although I know I haven't as much sense and steadiness as a girl of seventeen and a schoolteacher ought to have, I'm not so silly as THAT. But I want to have everything as nice and dainty as possible. Davy-boy, don't leave those peapods on the back stairs . . . someone might slip on them. I'll have a light soup to begin with . . . you know I can make lovely cream-of-onion soup . . . and then a couple of roast fowls. I'll have the two white roosters. I have real affection for those roosters and they've been pets ever since ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the pantry, ready for the waitress, who is not expected to enter the kitchen during the service of a meal. She washes the dishes used in the kitchen and the meat dishes from the table; she must keep the kitchen and its adjuncts, including back stairs, refrigerator, back porch and closet in order. Her mistress plans the meals with her, and she is expected to make good and economical use of left-overs. She often does the ordering by telephone, and sees to the milk, ice, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... butler's pantry with a swinging door opposite him into the room at the back, and a narrow passage leading around the corner next the door. He peeked cautiously, blinkingly round the door jamb and saw the lower step of what must be back stairs. There were no back stairs in Aunt Saxon's house, but before his mother died Billy Gaston had lived in the city where they always had back stairs. That door before him likely led to the dining-room. He took a careful step, pushed the swing door half an inch and satisfied himself that was the kitchen ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... put on her things, and to be in readiness, and then to remain in her room. If you keep a watch here, you will see everyone coming down the street, and the moment you see an officer approaching, if you will lock the door outside and take the key with you, then call Adele, and come down the back stairs with her into the yard, I will have the horses in readiness. There is only one man in the stable. A crown piece will make him shut his eyes as we ride out, and they will be five minutes at the door before they ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... odd, and stranger things happened that night. In the first place, Jessie sat up in her room and wrote a letter; and then, after her mother was in bed and everything still, she stole down the back stairs with a candle, quietly, as though she was doing some mischief. Betty, who came down to help her, brought a box in from the woodshed; and the two plotters, very silently, with many listenings at the door to see if any one was stirring, ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... in by the side door that opened on the back stairs; so he did not waste any time in ringing the bell. Now Hugh could hear heavy footsteps. They were coming, and the great test was ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... first cautious inquiries by way of the back stairs brought gratifying response—for did not all black Washington know well of the work in sculpture done by Mrs. Samuel Stillings, nee Wynn? Mrs. Vanderpool remembered Mrs. Stillings perfectly, and she walked, that evening, through ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... bed. Raven suspected her. He noted how she half closed the library door behind her; so he took the chair she had lately left, commanding the crack of it. In about the time he expected, he heard her in the hall. She had come down the back stairs, he judged, and was now putting on her hat and coat, with scarcely ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... ran after his adversary, who was in great danger of tumbling down the back stairs and breaking his shins over various collections of learned and domestic rubbish piled ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... down the Boer back stairs head over heels, yelling out excuses as he descended. He publicly denied on the 29th that Great Britain had promised to protect the Reformers, and added that they were not being unfairly treated. I will never make statesmen of my sons. I'd rather ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... we found him dead across the threshold of the door leading into the hall. Behrend we caught hiding in a brush cupboard by the back stairs. As for the others—" ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... brother through a door leading to the back stairs, and almost as soon as it was closed her visitor entered. Roger, however, did not retreat down the stairs; he stood and looked through the bobbin-hole. If the visitor turned out to be Sir John, he had ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... wave of silence began somewhere in a side of the house and swept across it, dying to a murmur at the edges. Barry waited for no more maneuvers, but walked boldly up the back stairs and entered the house, ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... he finished the sign in fifteen minutes, and I directed the carpenter to nail it over the door leading to the back stairs. He did so, and as the crowd, after making the entire tour of the establishment, came pouring down the main stairs from the third-story, they stopped and looked at the new sign, while some of them read audibly: 'To ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... reminded at every turn tonight of these futile conquests of the impossible. They all smelled of the back stairs and the kitchen. Her people had been slaveholders in the old regime of southern Kentucky. A kindly tolerant contempt for the pretensions of a servant class was bred in the ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... but he was of the sort that tear passion to tatters and he had never risen above third-rate parts. In every respect save declamation he had all the elegances and charm of manner that the stage can give, and he would receive and bow out a scrubwoman who had fallen down a flight of back stairs and wanted to make the landlord pay for her broken head with a grace truly Chesterfieldian. This was all very fine until he had taken a drop too much, when his vocabulary would swell to such dimensions that the confused and embarrassed client would flee in ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... successively held the highest place in government was one of the most insincere of mankind. His confidence was reposed, they said, not in those known and responsible counsellors to whom he had delivered the seals of office, but in secret advisers who stole up the back stairs into his closet. In Parliament his ministers, while defending themselves against the attacks of the opposition in front, were perpetually, at his instigation, assailed on the flank or in the rear by a vile band of mercenaries who called themselves ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... attics of their brains, until it is too much a rarity to find any one who will admit a twilight in his whole establishment. This is carrying mental housekeeping too far. I will confess that I prefer a light at the foot of the back stairs, where the steps are narrow at the turn, for Annie is precious to us. I will confess, also, that it is well to have a switch in the kitchen to throw light in the basement, on the chance that the wood-box may get empty before the evening ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... since there are only eleven in the whole mansion. At the same time, thee conventions of a prudish age make it undesirable that a second bath should be installed in one of the rooms already existing for that purpose. We think the fourth room on your right, as you leave the back stairs, going south. This is locally known as the Green Room and takes its name, not, as you may imagine, from the fact that the late Sir Henry Irving once slept there, but from the hue of the rodents, said there frequently to have been observed by the fourth Earl. Please execute the work ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... created Baron Bergamot, ann. 1686, Gentleman Usher of the Back Stairs, and afterwards appointed Warden of the Butteries and Groom of the King's Posset (on the decease of George, second Viscount Castlewood), accompanied his Majesty to St. Germain's, where he died without issue. No Groom of the Posset was appointed by the Prince of Orange, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... way to an alley halfway down the block. This ran to the rear of the tavern, where there was a door communicating with a hallway and a back stairs. Under the stairs was a closet filled with discarded cooking utensils. The closet had two doors, one opening into a drinking-room behind the main bar-room of ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... come so well furnished, filled the Council with panic. Dr. Melchior Hubner, who had been a miller's man, wished for a hundred musketeers to mow them down; but the Town Clerk proposed that all the Council should creep quietly down the back stairs, lock the doors on the refractory womankind, and make their escape. This was effected as silently and quickly as possible, for the whole Council 'could confess to a state of frightful terror.' Presently the women peeped out, and saw the stairs ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he got his hat; he tiptoed across the room. Heavens! how thankful he was for access to the back stairs. Mrs. Black was sweeping the parlor, and the rear of the house was deserted. Down the precipitous back stairs crept the young minister, listening to the sound of the broom on Mrs. Black's parlor carpet. As long as that regular swish continued he was ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... me up some back stairs into a room occupied by a lady in one bed, her female attendant in another and, in various shakedowns on the floor, another woman, two men and more children than I could count by the light of one candle. We ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... — N. camouflage; mimicry; hiding place; secret place, secret drawer; recess, hold, holes and corners; closet, crypt, adytum[obs3], abditory[obs3], oubliette. ambush, ambuscade; stalking horse; lurking hole, lurking place; secret path, back stairs; retreat &c. (refuge) 666. screen, cover, shade, blinker; veil, curtain, blind, cloak, cloud. mask, visor, vizor[obs3], disguise, masquerade dress, domino. pitfall &c. (source of danger) 667; trap &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... had set both maids to work in turning out several unused rooms, and a great amount of brisk work was going on. The trim housemaid, Fanny, who was the housekeeper's niece, had come down the back stairs with an armful of carpets, and had brushed into the flagged yard before she noticed a pedlar-like-looking man standing before the back door with a pack upon ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... could have snatched up a purse as she ran. Perhaps that was what she flew upstairs for. And then, maybe, she went down the back stairs—but no, the waiters must have seen her that way. And Luigi was in the front hall a moment after ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... Majesty's councils, I think the prayer of the petition should be instantly complied with. Canning's crocodile tears should not move me; the hoops of the Maids of Honour should not hide him. I would tear him from the banisters of the Back Stairs, and plunge him in the fishy fumes of the dirtiest ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... Isabelle, we left Pittiwitz up there. She claims your room as hers," she explained to Roger. "We've had her for years. And she was always there with father, and then with Constance and me. If she's a bother, just put her on the back stairs ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... priest here under a strong guard; the Spanish Embassy claims his person! Gendarmes can bring up the self-styled Carlos by your back stairs so that he may see no one. Instruct the men each to hold him by one arm, and never let him go till they reach ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the hotel and bound the rod and cane together, then wrapped paper around the top of it. I slept but little that night, spending most of the night in prayer. I wore a large cape. I took the cane and walked down the back stairs the next morning, and out in the alley I picked up as many rocks as I could carry under my cape. I walked into the Carey Bar-room, and threw two rocks at the picture; then turned and smashed the mirror that covered almost the entire ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... the cape up tight, and was ready to go. The luggage was all booby-trapped and could defend itself. Guns, gas, poison needles, the usual sort of thing. In the last resort it would blow itself up. The M-3 went down by a freight elevator. I used a back stairs and ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... had slept longer than she knew, the room was full of shadows, and the storm seemed to have died away. In the silence which now reigned, unbroken even by a snore, Gwen heard a sound that made her start and tremble. Some one was coming softly up the back stairs. All the outer doors were locked, she was sure; all the boys lay in their places, for she could see and count the three long figures and little Gus in a bunch on the sofa. The girls had not stirred, and this was no rat's scamper, but a slow and careful tread, stealing nearer and nearer to the study ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... sarcophagus of John Paul Jones, in the crypt. One prefers to think that the architect had some such plan; for the crypt, as at present arranged, is hardly more than a dark cellar, approached by what seems to be a flight of humble back stairs. To descend into it, and find there the great marble coffin with its bronze dolphins, is not unlike going down into the cellar of a residence and there discovering the family silver reposing in ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... to him over the telephone, at the bank. After sweeping out the office he perched himself on a stool and wrote a long letter home. Before daylight had quite disappeared he "wound" the vault combination, seriously, faithfully, and crept up the back stairs to his bed above the bank's treasure. He soberly inspected a heavy revolver, placed it on a chair beside the bed, and retired with a sound not ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... hour the tenant of the fourth story, Papa Ravinet, the second-hand dealer, was going to his dinner. If he had gone down as usually, by the front staircase, no noise would have reached him. But Providence was awake. That evening he went down the back stairs, and heard the death-rattle of the poor dying girl. In our beautiful egotistical days, many a man, in the place of this old man, would not have gone out of his way. He, on the contrary, hurried down to inform the ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... deserving it. But when Americans sell their daughters to European profligates for a title, and pay millions to boot; when republicans in profession become tuft-hunters in practice, and haunt the back stairs of palaces; when the United States government, the eldest born and guardian of democracy, decredits its own political creed and parades in royal processions,—is it not time ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... relationships in the aristocracy of Italy, to influence the King and his ministers. He might have taken warning from the royal speech attributed to the Queen Mother in reply to the Kaiser: "The House of Savoy rules one at a time." He should have kept away from the back stairs. He should have known Italy well enough to realize that the elements of Roman society with which he was affiliated do not represent either power or public opinion in Italy any more than good society does in most modern states. Roman ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... then shine out Richard Crauford,—shine out!" So saying, he sewed the diamond carefully in the folds of his shirt; and, rearranging his dress, took the cooling powder, which he weighed out to a grain, with a scrupulous and untrembling hand; descended the back stairs; opened the door, and found himself in ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... but taught by long experience to be wary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. Punctual as the clock of Saint Giles tolled nine, the neat dapper form of the little hale old gentleman was seen at the threshold of the court hall, or at farthest, at the head of the Back Stairs, trimly dressed in a complete suit of snuff-coloured brown, with stockings of silk or woollen as, suited the weather; a bob-wig, and a small cocked hat; shoes blacked as Warren would have blacked them; ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... mighty. His lawful cabinet of advisers, filling all of the high posts in the government, he treated with scant courtesy, preferring rather to secure his counsel and advice from an unofficial body of friends and dependents who, owing to their secret methods and back stairs arrangements, became known as "the kitchen cabinet." Under the leadership of a silent, astute, and resourceful politician, Amos Kendall, this informal gathering of the faithful both gave and carried out decrees and orders, communicating the President's lightest wish or strictest ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... to me in a flash when he first left me alone, only I was not certain in which parlor you would be waiting. I ran through the kitchen and down the back stairs; I helped the officers plan their decorations, and in that way learned of this private passage beneath the stairs. It was easy, but—oh, listen! they ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... the two policemen prodded the other in the ribs with his night-stick. "That's on us, Jakey. He'll have been gone hours ago. Let's be drilling. 'Tis a fine mind ye have, Mr. Blount, to be thinking of thim back stairs right off the bat." And the pair went down in the elevator with Blount, chuckling to themselves at their ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... husband (to pass over "les autres") generally sneaked into his house or apartment by the back stairs and into the bathtub before he showed himself to his adoring family; but after those first strenuous hours of scrubbing and disinfecting and shaving, and getting into a brand new uniform of becoming horizon blue, there ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... them. The same device was upon his sealring. It appeared upon his carriage door. It figured on the edges of his dinner-service. It was worked into the ground glass of the door that led from his dining-room to the back stairs. He had his paper stamped with it; and a great many of his neighbors, thinking it a neat and becoming ornament, imitated him ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... and a stately setting to her own personality. Mrs. Ogilvie often imagined that she would have liked a small house; but there is no doubt that she would have quitted it in disgust the first time that the odour of dinner came up the back stairs. She believed that a large staff of servants was merely a burden; but she would have felt at a loss had she been obliged to wait on herself even for an hour. As she looked now at the gardens in front of her, and away to the woods beyond, and to the great stretches of greenhouses and conservatories ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... your rooms were, sir," said the man. "She also wanted to show me the back stairs by which I could get out of the building if ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... smashing of the window, with the splinters of glass falling against the curtain, the crashing open of the door ... and the shots that "made his ears ring," and made him run for shelter to the rear of the hall, with the shoulder of his overcoat torn with a bullet. Then how he found himself on the back stairs covered with rifles and commanded to come down with his hands in the air. Finally how he was frisked to the city jail in an automobile with a business man standing over him armed with a piece ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... scarcely important enough to be taken into account, and trotted about, putting out one lamp after another, and the twinkling candles on the mantelpiece, and the little lights in the hall and corridor. It was an office Joseph liked. He stood for a moment at the foot of the back stairs looking with complacency upon the darkness, his candle lighting up his little old wry face. But when his eye caught the line of light under the library door, Joseph shook his head. He had put the house to bed without disturbance ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... in the floor, with a cast-iron grating, to let the heat from the room below into the one above. She says she guesses two people that wasn't so very honourable might sneak into the house the back way, and up the back stairs, and into the spare bedroom, and lay down on their stummicks on the floor, being careful to make no noise, and both see and hear through that register. ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... my Pocket. [Puts it besides, and it falls down.] Now I'll up the back Stairs, lest I meet him. Well, a dexterous Chamber-maid is the Ladies best Utensil, I ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... Willock, as he turned toward the divide; "guess I'll go by the front, and save the back stairs for an emergency." The gully was his back stairs. He was beginning to feel himself rich in architectural possibilities. When he reached the plain he was outside of a line of hummocks that effectually hid the cove from sight, more effectually because of a dense grove of pecans that ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... about a dozen," said Jim. "Go in?" Stackridge nodded; and with a grin Jim opened a private door communicating with some back stairs, down which his visitor went groping his way ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... pleasant order which the kitchen of the good housewife shows at four in the afternoon. In the woodshed beyond she gathered a great armful of wood, not to bother with the basket, which would not hold so much—and hurried back again, making toward the front stairs this time, because the back stairs were narrow and steep, and one could not rush up them at great speed with ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... moment she stood undecided in her room, and pressed both hands against her wildly beating heart. Then she went resolutely to the door and hastened down the back stairs. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... "I always have been accustomed to a large house. It is only that this one seems to me inconvenient. The back stairs are so very central, and the telephones are so badly placed, one in the study, and the other away out in the back of the hall. Really, you would think, to see them, that the rector and the servants were the only ones to be considered, and not the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... bedroom window. But it is impossible to get over your point that if he had entered by the door he would have tried to escape by the same means, not knowing that the door had been locked in the meantime. To do that he must have traversed the corridor twice and gone down and up these back stairs while the guests were coming up the other stairs. He couldn't have done it in the time. He would have been caught—cut off before he could get back. Look at this steep flight of stairs and the length of the corridor! That disposes of ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... gate and up the back stairs; Morten went into the shop and returned with five "Napoleons." "You see I know your taste," he said laughing. Morten's room was right up under the roof; it was a kind of turret-room with windows on both sides. One could look out ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... he came Hazel saw him descending from the coach, and without a word to any one, although it was almost supper time, and the early winter twilight was upon them, she seized her fur cloak and slipped down the back stairs, out through the shadows, across the road, where she surprised good Amelia Ellen by flinging her arms about her neck and bursting into tears right in the dark front hall, for the gust of wintry wind ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... my liberator! In his hand a tallow dip to light this Imperial Highness down back stairs to the ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... with a flounce into the kitchen. Annie had removed her hat and coat and tied on a white apron in a second, and she began waiting exactly as if she had come down the back stairs after a night spent in her own room. Indeed, she did not dream that either Harry or Maria knew that she had not, and she felt quite sure of Hannah's ignorance, since Hannah herself had been away ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... watched and waited; and in a very few minutes Heyton came out of the sick-room. He was white as death, and he was shaking in every limb. The detective waited until he had heard Heyton's slow and heavy steps descend the stairs, then Mr. Jacobs went down, by the back stairs, to his sitting-room. He dined there, with the Inspector, and entertained—though that is scarcely the word—the amazed and disgusted Mr. Brown by an account of a visit Mr. Jacobs had paid to a big agricultural show in ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... went outside and took the jack from the porch and carried it through the kitchen, into the dining room where it smiled over Dorothy's shoulder, and then he went into the kitchen again and up the back stairs. Wasn't that it, Roger?" ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... Jock," Emma had said, just before he left her. "They'll try it. If they give you a broom and tell you to sweep down the back stairs, take it, and sweep, and don't forget the corners. And if, while you're sweeping, you notice that that kind of broom isn't suited to the stairs go in and suggest a new kind. ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... not go so far," replied the abbot soothingly. "True, both the front and the back stairs are open to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... young men ran down the back stairs, passed through the kitchen where a Chinese cook was getting breakfast, and out into the bright sunlight. Before they cut across to the corral their eyes searched for enemies. Nobody was in sight except the ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... the right to know it," she said, looking at him out of brilliant, unwinking eyes. "It's about father. He was out there—on the lawn—before he turned on the light in his room. I heard him come in, a minute before Berne went down the back stairs and out to the lawn. And I heard him go to his window and stand there, looking out, at least five long minutes before ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... exterior raged a storm of rebellion that these things should be and not be for her. The world was one huge sour grape; and yet she must smile as though it tasted sweet. There were blurs in her eyes as she stumbled up the back stairs, whither her way was pointed, that she might stand in a corner of the dressing-room where the now fast-arriving ladies were laying off their wraps. She swallowed a lump in her throat and winked hard in the attempt to ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... waggon, which would halt some distance to the left of the house, and that their plan was to set one man at the end of the hall to hinder communication with the servants' quarters, and two on the upper landing to command the front and back stairs, while the remaining burglars ransacked the office and any other rooms in which plunder might be found. The youth's appointed mission was to fire the house, when the search was completed. Hardly had ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell |
